Insecurity is crippling Nigeria’s education system. In most parts of the country, schooling comes with its fair share of challenges, but when students risk losing their freedom or lives at school, our tomorrow is under attack.
It is on record that 800 secondary school and university students have been kidnapped in coordinated attacks by terrorists and bandits in the last two years. Although these abductions did not begin recently, they have become more frequent than in 2014 when 276 girls were abducted from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
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If anything, the frequency of these abductions now, in a way, normalises the nightmare. Once outraged, Nigerians are now in a state of acceptance. Acceptance that education in Nigeria will never be safe, that schooling is a risky venture that portends the loss of life and freedom that it is normal to scurry around to raise millions in ransom for your child.
Insecurity in Nigeria is drastically eating up the educational sector to the extent that both students, teachers and the government are being frustrated, leading to educational decay.
There is no doubt that the insecurity situation in the country calls for extraordinary measures to combat it. It may take a long time and huge resources to achieve, but the end is certainly going to justify the means.
Bolaji Abdulmalik Abdulganiyu, Department of Mass Communication, Skyline University, Nigeria
